Canada’s Lake Louise would have seemed like an unlikely place for Mikaela Shiffrin to make her first World Cup podium appearance in downhill. It’s a glider’s course where the technical proficiency she honed for years as a slalom and giant slalom racer wouldn’t necessarily be rewarded. And because of her exceptional technical skills, it would have seemed more likely for her first podium in a speed event to come in super-G.
But on a day when snow fell on that majestic resort nestled in Canada’s Banff National Park, impairing visibility for many in the field, the 22-year-old EagleVail racer finished third Friday in the first women’s downhill event of the season. Her previous best finish in downhill was 13th, and her best finish in super-G has been fourth.
Shiffrin was only 0.3 seconds behind Cornelia Huetter of Austria. Teammate Lindsey Vonn — an 18-time winner at Lake Louise — endured a frightening crash that left her fans holding their breath but skied off the mountain under her own power, tweeting later that she expected to be back in the starting gate for another downhill Saturday.
Shiffrin had only raced downhill twice before the World Cup, and has raced only five super-G races. She has had 46 World Cup podium finishes in slalom and giant slalom.
“I thought I could be maybe solidly top 10 or top five, but I wasn’t really expecting a podium,” Shiffrin told reporters in the finish area. “I think that would have been really presumptuous. I felt like my run was really solid, and I definitely had the luck of being on the right side of the snow today. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, if the conditions are a little bit more even, but I’m really excited with my run and I’m excited with my mentality.”
It was Shiffrin’s fourth podium in five races this season — she finished first and second in technical races last week in Killington, Vt. — and it increased her lead in the World Cup overall standings. Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg, the tour’s top giant slalom racer, finished seventh. The difference between third place and seventh is 24 points. Shiffrin now leads Rebensburg by 129 points.
Shiffrin said it was good to see Vonn ski down the hill after her crash.
“Thank goodness that, from what we’ve seen, she’s OK,” Shiffrin said. “Hopefully she’s really OK. She takes the risk, she’s strong, she’s had some really great training, so for sure she’s fit to win. She looked like she was taking some risks today but not crazy. It was just an unlucky spot where she caught her inside ski. Itap never fun to watch that happen.”
Vonn was leading the race at the time of her crash.
“Well that hurt,” Vonn said in her tweet, “had a nice lead the whole way down but caught my inside ski. Thatap ski racing though! I’ll be sore tomorrow but will rest up tonight and barring anything major I will be racing. Can’t keep me down! Congrats on the podium today too.”
